In no area is the stewardship of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., more radiant than in the struggle for civil rights and human rights. The Convention was organized at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the career of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Progressive National Baptist Convention was formed to give full voice, sterling leadership and active support to the American and world fight for human freedom. The convention was the convention-denominational home and platform for the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who addressed every annual session of the Convention until his death in 1968. In his valedictory of that year, President Gardner C. Taylor said, "As we remember Dr. Martin King's trials and triumphs, we remember our part in them. Progressive Baptists may take justifiable pride in the unassailable fact which must now forever be true, that when he had no spiritual (denominational) home among Black Baptists, cast out from the house of his Fathers, Progressive Baptist gave him a Black Baptist (denominational) residence. You provided him with an address in the community of Black Baptists. Let angels record that truth and let succeeding generations bring their gratitude to your tent door."
New generations of Progressive Baptists are continuing the struggle for full voter registration, education and participation, affirmative action against all forms of racism and bigotry, Black economic empowerment and development, equal educational opportunity, freedom of religion by the restraint of all Governmental authority and dictation in matters of faith, conscience and the church, the abolition of South African apartheid and the realization of universal human rights and total human liberation. At all annual and adjourned sessions there is scheduled a huge and impressive civil rights celebration, featuring a National civil rights leader to inform the constituents of the Convention of current issues and challenges, inspire them to continue and increase their participation in the struggle and garner fresh human and financial resources to advance the cause of full and total human rights.
